To Find Him is to Find Myself

Upon giving an answer that he couldn’t have known, Simon had something else revealed to him: his identity and his mission. “Who do you say that I am?” Jesus asked in today’s Gospel (Matthew 16:13-19). That question is important. Every person must answer it because it is Jesus who has come to save the world, and Jesus who will have authority to judge it. Simon says, “You are the Messiah, Son of the Living God.” What an extraordinary answer! Jesus had not introduced Himself as such and knew Simon could have only known that by the power of the Holy Spirit. “Without the Holy Spirit, no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord (1 Cor 12:3).’” But in personally receiving the Spirit to discover Jesus as Lord and Messiah, you have the bonus to discover yourself. Simon was given a new name. But it wasn’t new. It was what the Father intended all along when He imagined and crafted that person: a Rock. And Simon Peter was told the mission the Father had always intended - the plans He knew well for him (Jer 29:11). He would be the first leader of the Church and key-bearer of the gates of Heaven. I started to cry as I thought of it. This year, I am passionately pursuing God and the identity He has given me. I am passionately seeking to know the mission He has for me. I want with eagerness to be totally inside God’s will. How about you? What was the identity God intended as He formed you? We see with Saint Peter that it was not in his wounds or his sins. We know Peter struggled with cowardice and miscommunication. But by the Spirit, he boldly and bravely led the Apostles, cured sick people and gave speeches that converted thousands. His identity was the opposite of his wounds and sins. He wasn’t a weakling; he was God’s Rock!

It’s the same for us. We are not our wounds or our sins. God created us intending the opposite. May He show you and me! I am passionately pursuing my identity and mission in Jesus. And I hear in today’s Gospel that the place where I will encounter these will be where I encounter Him. It will be where I say, “You are the Messiah, the Son of God.” Come Holy Spirit, to give us deeper knowledge of Jesus as our Lord. To find Him is to find ourselves.